News

Volvo Penta has started production of industrial engines for the power generation market at the Volvo Group’s facility in Curitiba, Brazil. A new production line has been set up at the plant for the Volvo Penta engines, which include the 13litre TAD-1344GE and TAD-1345GE models. Ron Huibers, president of Volvo Penta of the Americas said, “One of Volvo Penta’s ambitions is to improve our global supply chain for our products with competitive lead times, at a competitive cost. By producing these industrial

Turkey’s new Osman Gazi Bridge has now opened for traffic. This bridge can carry 40,000 vehicles/day, while halving the travel time needed using previous routes. This is a six lane suspension bridge measuring 3km and spanning the Sea of Marmara. Construction has taken 42 months and the structure has been designed to cope with the risk of earthquakes. The project has been co-ordinated by Japanese construction company IHI, with Siemens handling the role of electro and mechanical contractor. Siemens has dev

Contractor FM Conway will carry out major resurfacing works in the UK. The £56 million deal is with East Sussex County Council, operating as specialist surfacing sub-contractor to the Costain CH2M joint venture. This is a seven year deal involving surfacing as well as maintenance and patching work. FM Conway will be using its novel Enviro range of asphalt base and binder products for the road rebuilding work, reducing the quantities of primary aggregates required in the job.

WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff is carrying out the study for the A6 – M6 relief road in the UK, close to the city of Manchester. The study will review various aspects of the project, including the environmental issues. The new link will improve transport connections from the A6 to the Hazel Grove junction on the M60 motorway. It will also improve transport links to the Manchester Airport relief road scheme under construction at present.

Canada’s provincial British Columbia government has issued a request for qualification for construction of a US$2.7 billion bridge over the Fraser River around the city of Vancouver. The 10-lane bridge will be built under a 30-year public-private partnership agreement and will include tolled transit lanes and related Highway 99 improvements between Bridgeport Road in the adjacent city of Richmond and Highway 91 in the city of Delta. The 60-year-old tunnel now carries its limit of 80,000 vehicles a day an

Work is due for completion shortly on Nairobi’s Southern Bypass, with an official inauguration being planned. The 28.6km highway has been constructed by Chinese contractor China Road and Bridge. The project has been required in a bid to tackle Nairobi’s chronic congestion problem. The city suffers heavily from traffic delays at peak periods.

Proposals have been put forward for a new tolled highway running around the US city of Lafayette. The project is expected to cost from US$1 billion to $1.3 billion, depending on which route is selected. One proposed route is 43km long while the other measures nearly 58km. The project’s environmental aspects have yet to be evaluated and will play a major role in selecting the route. The highway would connect from Interstate 49 to Interstate 10 and then with US 90. The aim would be to reduce congestion along

Parsons has won a deal to design and installation of the nation’s first all-lane, dynamic-priced tolling system on a 16km segment of Interstate 66 in Virginia. This stretch of highway runs from Interstate 495, the Capital Beltway, to US Route 29 in Rosslyn, Virginia. Dynamic tolling, able to adjust toll pricing to demand, will operate in the peak travel direction during weekday rush hours. This will help lower traffic congestion into and out of US capital Washington, DC.

Some vehicles are too wide for allotted spaces, others are just badly parked – photograph courtesy of Tom Schwimmbeck

Financing looks to have been secured for major tolled highway projects in Indonesia. These highways are the 129km Pekan Baru-Dumai route, which forms part of the Trans-Sumatra highway, the 60.5km Cileunyi-Sumedang-Dawuan (Cisumwadu) road and the 39km Manado-Bitung route. A loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) worth some US$370.2 million is expected to provide around half of the financing required for the Pekan Baru-Dumai route. Meanwhile loans worth a total of $300.2 million from the Ex